News about Korean new media such as Internet and mobile tech but also on conventional media such as TV, radio, film and newspapers. Purpose of this blog is to function as reference material for a research project (2006-2009) on Korean media and new media, a part of the OED research group and funded by HS Foundation (see: Affiliations). Special thanks to research assistant Katja Heinonen who took care of the blog in 2007-2008.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

But experts worry the move could justify the administration’s efforts to privatize the broadcaster

Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. has sparked controversy by indefinitely postponing an episode of “MBC Special,” dealing with a British mother who lost her son to vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease, due to fears the program could “provoke prosecutors.” Broadcasting experts are criticizing the move, saying MBC’s over-defensive attitude could bring the ill effect of justifying the administration’s hard line drive towards the broadcaster.

Cancellations could include programs critical of the government or those that are deemed racy

In his inaugural address yesterday, new KBS President Lee Byong-soon strongly hinted that programs that monitor and criticize public power like “Media Focus” and “Current Events Tonight Live” would be canceled. This is earning criticism as not only a violation of the principle of separating station management and programming as laid out in current broadcast laws, but also as an attempt to turn KBS into a government-run media in step with the administration and its ideological persuasions.

There is widespread criticism of how key members of the Lee Myung-bak administration met secretly prior to the choosing of KBS’s new president to discuss what to do about it. The anger is completely natural because the news of this clearly reveals that the administration was conspiring to manipulate the broadcast media.

Korean Communications Commission chair, KBS board president and candidates for KBS president in attendance

Ahead of the naming of a new president of broadcaster Korean Broadcasting System, it has been revealed that Korean Communications Commission Chairman Choi Si-joong led a “secret meeting” between presidential chief of staff Chung Chung-kil, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan, KBS board of directors chairman Yoo Jae-cheon and figures believed to be candidates to be the next KBS president.

Choi Si-joong of the Korea Communications Commission, the Blue House, and the head of the board of trustees at KBS are holding the broadcaster back so President Lee Myung-bak can score the man he wants in the position of president of KBS.

It has been revealed that the Blue House is deeply involved in the KBS affair. It shows you how closely the Lee Myung-bak administration is plotting to manipulate the broadcast media when you learn that on August 17, influentials who constitute the inner circle of the administration met with KBS board chairman Yoo Jae-cheon and Kim Eun-gu, a former KBS board member and its presumptive next president.

On August 11 President Lee Myung-bak, while taking action of legally questionable legitimacy in firing KBS President Jung Yun-joo, said, “like other places, KBS must be reborn.” The best his administration could do to help it be reborn, however, was hold a strategy meeting to interfere in the choosing of the broadcaster’s new president. The people cannot help but be shocked at the inconsistency, since on the surface they have been talking about impartiality and political neutrality in broadcasting. Even more lamentable are the lies coming from those key administration figures, people who have repeatedly said they were not going to interfere. When the first news report exposing the Blue House’s involvement appeared, Kwak Kyung-soo, the Blue House’s senior public relations aide, expressed anger, saying the Blue House would demand a correction. It would have been more honest of him to just say the administration needs broadcasters favorable to it if it is going to succeed. Who will trust and follow a president whose administration lies with the regularity of a meal schedule?

In his concentration camp he has the KBS president, the MBC program “The Producer’s Notebook,” Koreans who are charged with encouraging a boycott of companies that advertise with the big three conservative newspapers, “candlelight” protesters, and now, Korean athletes in Beijing.

Some within the prosecution say charging the six with obstruction of business is inappropriate

With a court set to review a request by prosecutors to issue a warrant to arrest six Internet users, who are alleged to have led a campaign to persuade companies to stop placing ads in three conservative newspapers, the Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, and DongA Ilbo, the most critical issue is whether the six people conspired with other Internet users to obstruct the advertisers’ business.

The prosecution sought an arrest warrant August 19 for the six Internet users, who they are charging with obstruction of business for allegedly posting a list of the companies that advertise in the three conservative dailies on the Internet community site “National Campaign for Sovereignty of Media Consumers” and asking visitors to the site to call the companies. The 39-year-old creator of the site, who is only identified by the surname Lee, is among the six charged, all of whom are members of the site.

The administration and the Grand National Party say they are going to revise laws like the Newspaper Act so as to be able to classify portal news sites as news media. Portal sites choose, arrange, and write titles for news articles, they are saying, so they need to bear the responsibility that goes with that.

Since a considerable number of Korean citizens are indeed getting a lot of their news at portal sites, one surely might say there needs to be some legal basis, framework, and rules in place. There is in fact a need for some apparatus to provide developmental momentum in the future, given Korea’s high-tech Internet base and culture. However, it does not look like the administration and ruling party’s motives for wanting regulation originated in such thinking.

Statement that prompted the comment urged union members to attend hearing on Broadcast Law

The IP address of a critical comment attached to a posted statement on the homepage of the National Union of Media Workers has turned out to be from a computer located in the Cheong Wa Dae.

The union, ahead of a public hearing on revisions to the executive ordinance of the Broadcast Law, posted on its homepage August 14 a statement entitled, “Broadcast Communication Committee Members, Appear and Debate at the Hearing.”

An Internet user that uses the identity “Jungangin” criticized the statement in a comment left at 5:04 p.m. on August 14 in which he said there was no need for the committee members to attend the hearing since the deliberation process was taking place transparently. He said the union, which was hiding behind the mask of being media while thinking only of their rice bowls, should remove their masks and get jobs.

Yesterday the MBC program “The Producer’s Notebook” apologized on the air for its mad cow disease report, giving in to the Korea Communications Commission’s binding order to do so. Procedures do exist for challenging the order, but the broadcaster chose against that option and has reassigned the producer responsible as internal censure. The management’s decision goes directly against the position of the news media professionals who have resisted the prosecution’s investigation and the commission’s sanctions, seeing them as suppression of the media. It is also a betrayal of the country, which has trusted and supported the program.

He arrests people who have committed no corruption, and sets free those who have. He’s going to put KBS President Jung Yun-joo into jail, while pardoning the corrupt chiefs of conglomerates and conservative newspaper companies.

Global Internet firm Google has fallen into the trap of Korea’s “real name system.”

Google’s YouTube (youtube.com), the world’s largest video site, has become subject to the real name system, which obliges Internet users to use their real names when posting information to Web sites. YouTube now stands at a crossroads and must decide whether to adopt the real name system or alter or drop its service in Korea.

The government announced on July 22 comprehensive measures to protect online information, expanding the number of sites subject to the real name system from media outlets, portals and UCC sites getting up to 300,000 visitors a day to those getting just 100,000 a day. YouTube, which was getting 800,000 visitors weekly as of the second week of August, will from next year be subject to the real name system. An official with the Korea Communications Commission said that YouTube, even though it is an overseas site, will not be exempt from the system, and that Google has, in the past, accepted Korean regulations, such as those regarding underage protections.

Relationship between government and media likely to grow stronger following pardons, critics say

Critics of President Lee Myung-bak’s decision to pardon convicted executives from the three major conservative newspapers have characterized the move as a symbolic step toward a “new era of cozy ties between the government and media.” It was announced on August 12 that more than 340,000 convicted businesspeople will be pardoned on Liberation Day, August 15.

The critics say that compared with the presidential pardons for convicted businesspeople, made to “save the economy,” the pardons to be granted to the conservative media executives, including the Chosun Ilbo President Bang Sang-hoon and executives from the JoongAng Ilbo and the DongA Ilbo, are unjustified because none of the executives have apologized for their crimes, yet seem to have contempt for the prosecutors and judges that convicted them. The newspaper executives were all convicted of large-scale tax evasion.

The new KBS president Lee Byung-soon on Wednesday hinted there will be massive reform in all sectors of the public broadcaster, from programming to management and organization. Lee was speaking at an inauguration ceremony at TV Open Hall in the KBS main building on Wednesday morning,

In his inaugural address, Lee promised to “secure the independence and autonomy of KBS, turning it into a public broadcaster that earns the viewers fees and makes viewers want to pay more.” He promised to make KBS a strong organization by introducing effective competition.

The board of directors at public broadcaster KBS nominated Lee Byong-soon, chief executive officer of affiliate KBS Business, after interviewing and screening four candidates. If President Lee Myung-bak chooses Lee as KBS president, the public broadcaster will get its first chief executive in 35 years to be chosen from within its own ranks. The 11 former KBS presidents were selected from outside the company’s ranks, with either public service or media backgrounds.

Lee Byong-soon, the 59-year-old chief of KBS Business, was nominated as the new head of probably Korea’s most influential public broadcaster on Monday. President Lee Myung-bak plans to appoint him to the post on Tuesday. Lee will head KBS for the remainder of the term of Jung Yun-joo, who was fired earlier this month, which ends in November next year.

The Korea Communications Commission came up with a revision of the country’s Act on Promotion of Utilization of Information and Communication Network and Data Protection so that Internet portals will face fines of up to W30 million if they fail to abide by a request from a defamation victim to delete a piece of writing posted on a portal (US$1=W1,055). Also, portals must monitor their own websites so that unlawful information does not float around, while being required to notify individuals whose private information has been exposed in case of hacking or by accident.

Web portals will be fined up to W30 million unless they remove articles from sites at the request of a defamation victim. The Korea Communications Commission on Wednesday said it will revise the Act on Promotion of Utilization of Information and Communication Network and Data Protection to that effect.

The Seoul Administrative Court on Wednesday rejected an application to review the dismissal of KBS president Jung Yun-joo. The court said information submitted did not suggest the dismissal at the hands of President Lee Myung-bak was illegal.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

State-run broadcaster KBS aired a special program on Sunday on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who became the country's premier in May for the third time, alleging that the media mogul's control over state broadcaster RAI has threatened media objectivity and democracy. The program said that after top management at RAI were replaced, various news programs took a "sandwich" approach by broadcasting the government's opinions first, followed by criticism from opposition parties and finally the stance of the ruling party, leading to an imbalance in news where the government and ruling party's positions account for two-thirds of news content.

KBS should speak for itself. It has set a new standard when it comes to brazenness. In its coverage of the impeachment motion against former president Roh Moo-hyun in March 2004, the KBS program "Media Focus" aired seven consecutive interviews with people opposed to the impeachment and not a single one who supported the move. Looking at the entire lineup of KBS programs on the impeachment motion, there were 22 people who opposed it and just one who supported it.

The Korean version of Google Video, the search engine recently launched by Google Korea, is becoming a hotbed of illegal clips. Despite its powerful search technology, the site seems powerless to prevent users uploading pornography and copyrighted content.

Google Video shows millions of clips searched through all over the web from overseas services such as MySpace.com, plus major domestic video-sharing sites, including Daum TV Pot, Pandora TV, Mgoon and Mncast, as well as its own YouTube.

The government and the ruling Grand National Party have decided to revise related laws governing print and online news outlets, classifying Internet portals as news organizations so that they will face more social responsibility. The aim is to classify Internet portals so they fall under the jurisdiction of the Press Arbitration Commission and can be held accountable in a court of law if an article carried by them draws libel complaints.

The government and ruling party will define web portals as news outlets to enhance their social responsibilities and obligations. In a recent working-level meeting, the ruling Grand National Party and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism agreed to revise the Newspaper Law to that effect.

The move comes after criticism of web portals for playing host to defamation and other violations while playing a similar role to the news media by gathering and editing news.

Internet shopping is changing the way we do business. And this is helping struggling domestic companies find new ways to increase profits.

The Korea National Statistical Office says local start-ups doing business online have more than doubled since 2001. This is because people can operate Internet shopping malls on relatively low budgets, with considerably less items than a regular store.

MBC apologized to viewers on Tuesday for misleading them with misinterpretations and exaggerations about the risks of mad cow disease in the current affairs program “PD Diary.” It had been 106 days since PD Diary aired the first report on April 29 on the risks of mad cow disease that drove the entire country into hysteria. The apology followed an order by the Korea Communications Standards Commission on July 16. Following its main newscast that night, MBC showed the text of the KCSC order on air and read aloud its content, telling viewers that it apologized from the bottom of its heart.

The international press is praising Korean athletes who are performing superbly by winning gold medals almost every day.

China News, a quasi-official Chinese news agency, on Tuesday selected three top athletes or athletic teams of the Beijing Olympics -- American swimmer Michael Phelps, who has been breaking world records every time, the South Korean women's archery team, who won the team title for the sixth time in a row, and the American basketball dream team of NBA superstars. "After the semifinals, the South Korean women's archery team shot all arrows into the central gold target area. We must bow our heads to their divine skills,” it wrote.

Computer users have been warned beware of a spam e-mail spreading false news that World War III has started. In recent analysis of worldwide malicious spam campaigns released on Monday, computer security firm Symantec warned of the mail, titled "WWIII Has Started: U.S. Troops Have Attacked Iran." If users click on the video out of curiosity, they will see their computers contaminated with a malicious code and hacker may steal their personal information.

Internet Protocol Television will be available from October, and fixed-line telecom providers KT, Hanaro Telecom and LG Dacom are already in fierce competition to win crucial business rights. IPTV offer television broadcasts via Internet networks. KT and Hanaro Telecom, which provide high-speed Internet connection services, have so far only offered video on demand services but are getting ready to offer real-time IPTV broadcasts of KBS, YTN and other terrestrial and cable broadcasters.

President Lee Myung-bak on Monday fired KBS president Jung Yun-joo, who has been accused of mismanagement and bias. Lee accepted a recommendation by the KBS board of directors, who were in turn responding to a call from the Board of Audit and Inspection on Aug. 5 to fire Jung over debt, losses caused by his incompetence, unprincipled personnel management, and illegal and reckless implementation of projects. The board voted to sack Jung on Friday.

The field of e-Sports will soon have a global professional governing body. The Korea Game Development and Promotion Institute says that Korea e-Sports Association chairman Kim Shin-bae and his counterparts from nine countries, including Germany, Taiwan and Vietnam, will officially declare the launch of the International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) on Monday.

After a period of lackluster performance, Korean movies are gaining ground again this summer. Although most blockbusters feature celebrities and are made by award-winning directors, industry insiders say it's not the name value that's selling the tickets.

KBS president Jung Yun-joo held a press conference on Wednesday and claimed the results of a probe by the Board of Audit and Inspection were “full of lies and distortions,” adding he would file a lawsuit today to nullify a recommendation by the BAI to fire him. In a statement to the public, Jung criticized the BAI and called on the board of the state-run broadcaster not to become “criminals” in the eyes of history by supporting the recommendation to fire him. This is the type of behavior we have grown accustomed to from Jung, who has refused to obey five summons from prosecutors and four from the BAI.

The country's second largest fixed line communications firm, Hanaro Telecom, introduced an Internet phone service on Wednesday. Online phone calls are cheaper than calling out of town or overseas from land lines.

It seems likely that North Korea will finally join the worldwide web and provide Internet service from next year. Kim Sang-myung, the chief of the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a group of former North Korean professionals, at a symposium in the National Assembly on Wednesday said, "According to the Internet Access Roadmap it launched in 2002, North Korea will begin providing Internet service for special agencies and authorized individuals as early as next year."

A transparent thin-film transistor technology developed jointly by a Korean university and corporate researchers is expected to help realize a dream-like reality. When installed as a transparent display on car windows, the new technology offers innovative touch-screen navigation.

Children in elementary schools outside Seoul who took part in a backpacking trip to experience cultural events in the capital stopped by tents set up by fugitive members of the People’s Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease at the Jogye temple downtown and wrote in their guestbook comments insulting President Lee Myung-bak. Photographs and video footage of this incident were spread throughout the Agora debate site on the popular Internet portal Daum. One child wrote "Lee Myung-bak die! Are you crazy?" Another child wrote that the president was worse than a dog. There was one child who wrote that Lee must be doing what he does because he was not born in Korea and told him to leave the presidential office before his "epileptic fits" grew worse.

Exercising its legal authority, the Board of Audit and Inspection on Tuesday recommended the sacking of Jung Yun-joo, the head of KBS, saying “striking irregularities” that have been discovered made him unfit to head the state-run broadcaster. Jung will be fired if the KBS board of directors, which meets on Thursday, votes on the BAI’s recommendation and President Lee Myung-bak authorizes it.

Big corporations with total asset of less than W10 trillion will be able to jump into competition to set up Internet Protocol TV channels under a draft enforcement decree on the IPTV law passed in a Cabinet meeting Tuesday (US$1=W1,018). The decree sets the standard at W10 trillion in total assets to render large corporations eligible to set up IPTV cable news and general television channels. YTN and mbn are examples of cable new and general television channels can air virtually everything from news and soap operas to sports matches.

The Board of Audit and Inspection has called on KBS directors to dismiss network president Jung Yun-joo over debts, monetary losses caused by his incompetence and unprincipled personnel management.

In a press release, the government watchdog said it conducted a special audit of KBS in June and July after a request from civic groups including the New Right Union in May. “We reached the conclusion based on Article 32 Clause 9 of the BAI Act, acknowledging that irregularities by Jung are evident,” it said.

Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) Mobile TV is more popular on weekdays than weekends.

Tests conducted by TNS Media Korea over a three-day period starting Aug. 1 showed mid-week viewer ratings for Digital Multimedia Broadcasting of 1.2 percent ? dropping to less than 1 percent on the weekend.

President Lee Myung-bak will have an interview with global Internet giant Yahoo later this month, says Cheong Wa Dae.

A presidential aide says President Lee will be the first world leader interviewed by Yahoo. The portal has previously interviewed U.S. leaders only, but recently decided to expand its political mandate to world leaders from other countries.

KBS president Jung Yun-joo is banned from traveling overseas, the Justice Ministry announced Monday, scuppering his plan to leave for Beijing on Wednesday to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Jung has ignored five summons for questioning by prosecutors over breach of trust charges. The Board of Audit and Inspection also asked Jung to show up for questioning four times in verbal and written form, but he never responded to the request.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has decided to start teaching Internet etiquette and ethics starting in the second grade. They now begin in the fourth grade. And an elementary school text on the Internet will be expanded to 62 pages by 2010, from the present seven.

There is probably no country that is experiencing the negative side of the Internet quite as we are. Most of all, the Internet has become an open market for the dissemination and amplification of groundless rumors. In this nation, a scurrilous rumor started by a jobless person with aspirations of grandeur that a female college student was beaten to death by riot police motivates a large group of people to take out an ad on the front page of a daily newspaper calling for witnesses. This phenomenon cannot be explained just by saying that Korea has one of the highest per-capita Internet use rates and the highest rate of high-speed Internet connections in the world.

MBC’s “PD Diary” current affairs program claimed Friday that prosecutors distorted the content and purpose of its report on mad cow disease with arbitrary interpretation. “PD Diary” was denying the findings of an investigation by prosecutors, who said on July 29 that MBC producers deliberately distorted 19 conspicuous parts of the report, exaggerating the dangers of mad cow disease.

North Korea’s official news channel on Sunday reported the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist in Mt. Kumgang for the first time since it happened 23 days ago. On Sunday morning, an announcer from the state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported the news during a bulletin that focused on a statement threatening the expulsion of South Koreans from Mt. Kumgang. The North’s central radio station reported the news in a similar tone.

Consumers are seeking to launch a collective lawsuit against Internet portal Daum over the recent large scale personal information leak from its e-mail service. Industry officials say consumer watchdog Consumers Korea has completed their legal review of the suit and will begin gathering plaintiffs from Monday.

The Seoul Southern District Court issued a ruling on Thursday on a complaint the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries filed against MBC’s “PD Diary” and ordered the program to issue a correction of its April 29 report on mad cow disease. The court ordered “PD Diary” to display a title at the start of one of its weekly programs within 10 days reading “correction and rebuttal” with the text portion being read aloud by the program’s moderator. The agriculture ministry filed the complaint after “PD Diary” refused to obey a May 19 decision by the Press Arbitration Commission ordering the program to issue a correction.

Some 1,700 Chinese fans of the Korean Wave packed seats of a concert co-produced by Korea's CJ Entertainment and Chinese CCTV, as part of the “Meet in Beijing” cultural event recently organized by Beijing authorities.

Gracing the concert were five Korean teams, including balladeer Shin Seung-hun, sexy Chae Yeon, pop idols Battle and nine Chinese teams, including national singer Sun Nan and Taiwanese vocalist Zhou Huajian. The event climaxed when singers and the audience sang the 1988 Seoul Olympic theme song “Hand in Hand” and “Beijing Huan Yin Ni (Beijing Welcomes You)”, written to mark D-100 of the Beijing Olympics.

It is nearly impossible to cancel membership in one out of five online shopping malls. This is according to a survey by the Seoul Electronic Commerce Center on the personal information protection status of 17,155 online shops that reported business operations to Seoul city authorities as of June. The ECC released the findings on Wednesday.

The country's three major mobile communications service providers SK Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom are set to boost the music market by showcasing digital rights management-free music files. DRM prevents illegal copying and allows users to listen to paid music services only from devices supporting it.

Police used force to disperse protesters in front of the KBS building and arrested a score of them on Thursday afternoon, one day prior to a KBS board of directors meeting that is to decide the fate of the network’s embattled president. This is the first time a rally was forcefully dispersed since protests began in front of KBS on June 11.

Prosecutors announced the interim results of their investigation into MBC’s "PD Diary" on Tuesday and said its report on mad cow disease deliberately distorted and exaggerated the threat of contracting the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy from U.S. beef in 17 different parts of the program. After investigating the program’s translators, expert sources who were interviewed, as well U.S. data it cited, the judicial organ of the government has officially acknowledged that almost all of the information regarding mad cow disease in the "PD Diary" report were flawed.

Prosecutors have concluded that most parts of a two-part report by MBC current affairs program "PD Diary" on the dangers of U.S. beef distorted facts gathered by MBC's own reporters or deliberately edited information to exaggerate the risks of mad cow disease.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Tuesday released an interim report on its investigation into the program, saying MBC producers deliberately distorted 19 conspicuous parts of the report. The prosecutors' office requested MBC once again to turn in the materials to clarify those issues.

Aiming to curtail slander, libel and other illegal acts on the Internet, the government has decided to widen the application of user verification measures when people sign up to use the services offered by Internet portals and other websites. The user verification measure, which had been applied only to Internet portals and user-created content sites with more than 300,000 daily visitors, or to Internet news sites with more than 200,000 daily visitors, will now be expanded to websites with at least 100,000 daily visitors. The government is trying to lessen the instances of illegal acts and cyber violence committed on the Internet under the cloak of anonymity.